DECREASING DISRUPTIVE BEHAVIOR IN A TEN YEAR OLD MALE WITH AUTISTIC DISORDER
DECREASING DISRUPTIVE BEHAVIOR IN A TEN YEAR OLD MALE WITH AUTISTIC DISORDER
COURSE (BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS)
Method
Participant Setting:
Participant is 10year old African American boy living in New York. Johnson lives with his father. He is
diagnosed with moderate intellectual disability, Autism and Impulse Control Disorder. Johnson is
verbal and can communicate his needs. He has a history of agitated behavior that is triggered by food. Johnson engages in a disruptive behavior when he cannot get food. He screams and slaps his
face repeatedly with both hands any time he is hungry and cannot get food. The slapping of the face
could be severe sometimes leaving visible marks and redness. Johnson is a student but because of
this disruptive behavior, teachers have shown concern that this behavior is affecting his social
relationship with other peers. This study will be confined to Johnson’s home. Participant will be asked
to use a Visual Timer that will beep at the end of one hour. When the timer beeps, Johnson will
request for snack. The timer will then be reset to tick off and beep at the end of another one hour.
Johnson will receive reinforcement from his father when he waits to receive snack from using the
timer.
Materials
Materials used in the study was Visual Time Clock
Dependent variable
Dependent variable in the study is disruptive behavior defined as screaming and banging hard
surfaces objects like tables and walls at the same time.
Functional Assessment
The experimenter will relied on both direct and an indirect functional behavior assessment (FBA)
conducted through interviews and observations with the participant and participant’s father to gather
the contingencies maintaining his disruptive behavior. The indirect data was collected from Johnson’s
father using ABC sheets. Experimenter also conducted direct observation and collected direct data
with ABC sheets. The outcome of the direct and indirect FBA suggests that his disruptive behavior is
maintained by food reinforcer. When he is hungry, he thinks the only way to get food is by seeking
being disruptive to his significant others to entice them to provide him food. He also thinks that he
can eat anytime he wants to eat even he had just finished eating.
Procedure
When deprive of food or access to snacks is limited, Johnson will engage in screaming and banging
in an effort to gain access to food or snacks (tangible reinforcer). The experimenter will be
conducted using ABAB design for one week to determine if there is a functional relationship
between disruptive behavior and his need for food. Visual timer set at home red surface fades as the
minutes tick off at the end of the hour, the red surface fades off completely and timer beeps.
Johnson will ask for food at this time. His father will praise him and give him snack/food.
Independent Variable
Independent variable in the study is the visual timer and praise.
The experimental design will be ABAB. The antecedents are his want for food and the behavior is
the slapping of self and as a result his father gives him food. The visual timer is to teach him to get food at 1 hour intervals when he will request for food and food will be given with praise.
CONTINUE THE ABOVE TOPIC. THE METHODOLOGY HAS BEEN. KINDLY COMPLETE THE FOLLOWING
AREAS
1. Create one week baseline using the the above behavior ONE PAGE
2. Introduce intervention using the timer to decrease the baseline behavior ONE PAGE
3. Use a graph showing independent and dependent variable to explain how effective your
intervention is.
4.explain your result.
5. Discussion
6. LIMITATION
USE THE SAMPLE BELOW AS A GUIDE
Independent Variable
Experimental design involved selfrecording, selfreinforcement and feedback. Abel continued to set
up events on calendar and check the events as in the period of baseline. In addition, however, he
received prompt from his wife in the mornings in a single statement as, “remember the calendar” and
a feedback in the evening on events set during the day as well as those checked. The original plan
was for Abel to add experimenter as an invitee on the calendar so that an email could be sent out to
experimenter whenever the calendar was set. Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties the invitation
could not be sent out. Therefore, participant sent a text message once daily in the evenings to
experimenter to report number of events he set up during the day. Abel selfreinforced organized task
with positive comments and a rewarding imoji in the text message sent out to experimenter. He also
received social approval from his wife who was excited that at long last his husband is taking steps to
organize his life. Experimenter supplemented those reinforcers with praise and thumbs up imojis in a
return text message.
During the withdrawal phase, participant continued to mark his calendar of important events but did
not report to experimenter daily via text message. Neither did he receive any prompt or feedback from
wife or feedback from experimenter. He reported to experimenter at the end of the 3 days of
withdrawal.
Results
Figure 1 illustrates the effects of selfmonitoring with selfreinforcement and feedback on organizing
daily tasks and events. During the 5 days of baseline, Abel scores ranged from 70% to 90% with a
mean score of 82%. On the first day, he attained 70% as he showed high interest in the study due to
its social value to him. He told the experimenter, “I need this and I am not going to play with it.” He
also checked these calendars as often as he received prompts in the form of tones from his iPhone,
and on average of every 2 hours. He reported forgetting two events only during the 5day period. His goal to attain 70% marking of events daily was met consistently during the baseline period.
During the experiment phase that lasted for 5 days, his scores ranged from 90 to 100 with a mean
score of 96. Thus, mean score rose from 82% at baseline to 96% during the experiment. Moreover,
he reported that he did not forget any event that was important and was marked on the calendar.
Five days into the study, Abel had to make a jobrelated trip outside the city for 3 days so the
experimenter considered it an opportunity to use those days outside his family as the withdrawal
phase. The results showed that percentage of events marked fell from baseline mean of 82% to 60%
with a range of 50 to 70%. Moreover, he attained his daily goal only once during the 3 days. The
second phase of the experiment started when he returned to the city, using the same methods as in
the first intervention phase. The results showed a return to the intervention phase with a stabilized
mean score of 94%.
Fig. 1. Percentage of events and tasks marked on calendar app of iPhone. Intervention involved selfmonitoring
with selfreinforcement and feedback from wife and change
Discussion
Selfmonitoring has been found to be effective to decrease challenging behaviors Reid, Trout &
Schartz (2005) and increase behaviors (Lloyd, Bateman, Landrum, & Hallahan, 1989; Harris, 1986).
Consistent with these studies, the results of this study demonstrated that selfmonitoring is an
effective behavioral approach to improve events and task organization. Selfmonitoring was effective
to bring about a change in Abel’s life that counseling and reprimand were not been able to achieve
over a lifetime. Selfmonitoring minimized the risk of becoming a victim of coercion (McDougall,
1998), and was preferred over standard instruction (Woloko, Hrycaiko, & Martin, 1993). The study
supports research that functional behavior analysis is an effective method in identifying external
factors that are influential in producing effective selfmonitoring. Kern, Ringdahi, Hilt & SterlingTurner
(2001) linked selfmonitoring with functional behavior analysis results to choose replacement
behaviors and reported positive results for a group of 48yearsolds who were taught to selfmanage
appropriate behavior and appropriate request for escape and attention reinforcers. Jones, Nelson &
Kazdin (1977) also reported on the effectiveness of linking selfmonitoring procedures to functional
analysis results. This study utilized indirect functional analysis to guide the inclusion of prompts and
feedback from Abel’s wife. The importance of linking feedback to selfmonitoring has been well
documented (Richman et al., 1988; Burgio et al., 1983; Winett, Neale & Grier, 1979). The present
study is unique in its application of iPhone calendar app to improve disorganized behavior using selfmonitoring
procedures in conjunction with feedback and selfreinforcement. Selfmonitoring is selfrewarding
and can be an effective tool to bring about positive behavior change given its lack of
coercion or semblance thereof, selfreinforcing, selfchosen goals that are achievable without much
ado and value placed on feedback that comes from significant others. It is also important to note that
the effectiveness of current study can be explained by motivating operations. Abel stated that the
intervention was something that he should have gotten a long time in his life. There was a sense of
deprivation that provided the momentum for the behavior change. Fortunately, the short period of
the study did not allow satiation to set in.
Limitations
The study acknowledges the importance of functional behavior analysis in ascertaining what may be
maintaining the disorganized behavior. However, the study utilized indirect functional analysis only.
Notwithstanding, it is important to note that the experimenter had direct observation of participant
for many years prior to migrating to the United States. The result of the indirect functional analysis is
therefore, a valid assessment of the behavioral function.
Another limitation of the study is that the withdrawal phase occurred when the participant was away
from family. It is possible that the results of the study could be different had the withdrawal phase
occurred with his wife who had been a positive influence in the intervention phase.
Moreover, the study was of a short duration and benefited from deprivation that was evidenced from
the statement of the participant. Further study over a long period of time is warranted to see the
effect when the enthusiasm wears down.